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Trending How: Coquette (pt.1 Origins)
- Lauren
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Haii all!! Welcome back from my recent pause and back to the scheduled content: Fashion! This week, I want to talk about an aesthetic that I've been meaning to cover for some time now: Coquette! (This will be part one! Where I talk about the beginning of this aesthetic)
I have lightly touched on this before, mentioning it in my previous blog about Nana, and before that in my conservative fashion blog. It is, honestly, a style that I truly love and find very interesting. Even though I do not typically fall under this aesthetic, I definitely draw a lot of inspiration from it. I love the layered meanings behind this aesthetic, which started off on Tumblr (who's surprised) in the 2010s, but since then, it has blown up on TikTok and now can be used to refer to a style that... is quite different. But this week I get to talk about the darker part, which is, honestly, my favorite! (who's surprised)
To begin, the word "Coquette" itself is French for a flirtatious young woman. This definition is crucial for understanding this aesthetic.
In its beginnings on Tumblr, this style started off being called "Nymphet," meaning a sexually promiscuous young woman who seduces older men (technically "girl", but feels gross to say). This term is most famously used in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955), and the film adaptations directed by Stanley Kubrick (1962), Adrian Lyne (1997), which, for those who do not know it is, in short, about a pedophile who is narrating the story of himself and 'Lolita' (Delores Haze).
It was far darker than what we see now. This aesthetic, though, was very much
not meant to be pedophilic, nor was it built on sexualizing young girls; it was more a romanticization of [CONSENTUAL] age gaps and themes of "daddy issues" in the sexual aspect. Think Lana Del Rey, specifically with her album Born To Die, which even has a song named "Lolita".
Marina and the Diamonds' album Electra Heart was another inspiration for it. Coming out around the same time, it blew up on Tumblr, with similar themes of growing up too fast, hypersexuality, and the sense of femininity and lost innocence.
It was not entirely about being sexual though, many of the themes behind this aesthetic were the darker sides of girlhood, and having to grow up too quickly. It was femininity and tragedy, turning to risqué behavior to cope, something that a lot of young women related to, but was also influential to teenagers.
What was a return to girlhood/processing the loss of it, became a cycle where young teens on the app/website saw the aesthetic and romanticized that life. Feeling the need to sexualize themselves or believing they should be sexualized, because that is what was shown. Growing up believing this and following these behaviors, though, often led to traumatizing situations.
But ok, we've talked about the themes, so what did Nymphet look like? Is it still around?
I'm not even going to lie, it was kind of hard to find examples of it. Most posts tagged "#nymphet" were removed when Tumblr cracked down on its censorship, where they ended up wiping a lot of posts off the site. Even Pinterest has this tag censored. But! We persist nevertheless!
Much of the fashion was influenced by the 50s! Again, with the Born To Die influence. Another reason for this is that Lolita (1997) was set in the 50s. It was as if prep school and '50s Americana had a baby, well... young woman.
Some staples of this aesthetic are:
High-waisted shorts (short-shorts)
Short skirts
Sandals
Plaid
Tennis skirts
Sundresses
Gingamn
Polka-dots
Heels
Crop Tops
Knee-high and thigh-high socks
Mary Janes
Sundresses
Lacy clothing
The color pallete was a lot of red (specificaly cherry-red), blue, pink, and white. Cherries were a huge motif for this aesthetic, being included in pictures, accessories, or even patterns on clothing.
Some other aspects of this style:
Pigtails
Double braids/milkmaid braids
Light makeup
Red-tinted chapstick/lip gloss
Natural colored hair
Heart-shaped sunglasses
Lacy socks
Lolipops
Hair ribbons or bows
Headbands
A subgenre of this is "Dark Nymphet," which is... pretty much how it sounds. Very similar to Nymphet but with a darker, grungier color palette. Mostly black, blue, and white. It is less Americana, though. If I were to give it a Lana Del Rey album, I would say it is more Ultraviolence. It was made to still have the romantic style and silhouette, just darker. I saw someone describe it as "every single female Tim Burton character," and that made me giggle a lot.
Some Fashion staples of this are:
Lace tops
Lingrinie (passable as outerwear, ofc)
Front-tie blouses
Lace dresses
Empire waistline tops
Babydoll tops
Messenger bags
Mini skirts
Short shorts
Loafers
Mary Janes
Pearls
Lockets
I think I accidentally found out that I do in fact fall into this aesthetic more than I thought while researching this... anyway-
Other names for this are "Dark Coquette" or even "Horror Indie Game Protagonist" is soemthing I've seen it overlap with a lot.
So, when and why did this become "Coquette" ?
As many of the themes and inspirations behind Nymphet were pretty taboo, the community around it was not all sunshine and rainbows. Some groups within the aesthetic are intertwined with kink communities such as DDLG (I'm not explaining that for you, look it up if you really want to ig, but you can probably guess). Pre-purge Tumblr had a lot of NSFW work on it; whether it was photoshoots/photos, drawn, or written, it affected everything on the site pretty much regardless of the community. There was also a lot of discussion on how it promoted dangerous activities and even romanticized it.
A lot of people did not love being associated with all of this, there was a portion of people who went with NoKinkNymphet, who related to this aesthetic, without the kink or the sexual aspects. This is what started the transformation to Coquette!
These efforts were pushed forward with the purge that Tumblr went through in 2019, with most to all of the NSFW content being wiped off of the site completely by the admin. The tag "#Nymphet" was heavily affected by this, because of the promiscuous nature of the word. This pushed a lot of people to change the name. What was typically known as Nymphet started getting called "Vintage Americana Coquette," while "Coquette" as a new aesthetic started to gain popularity. Stripping the heavy sexual themes and 50s Americana vibes, the hyperfeminine, romantic style started to become what we know it as today.
In part 2, I will talk more about what exactly "Coquette" is! As well as what the new-new understanding is (in my opinion, it is the misunderstood and mislabeled version, but I will get into that).
I hope you enjoyed this! I had a lot of fun researching these aesthetics, and honestly, Nymphet is something I and a lot of Tumblr/Tumblr adjacent kids/teenagers grew up on. So this was kind of nostalgic, disturbing, and a realization of some of my roots!
Byeeeeeeee !!!!
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